Relationships with Customers Back Number (2011)
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Basic Approach
In accordance with the Minebea Quality Policy, the Minebea Group aims to fully satisfy customers in terms of quality, cost, supply capacity, and speed, working diligently to enhance its reputation as the most reliable component manufacturer.
As part of this effort, we place great emphasis on risk assessment at the product and process design stages, enabling us to provide our customers with products of consistently high quality.
Quality Management
Quality Management Framework
In conjunction with the enactment of its Product Safety Charter in FY1995, the Minebea Group established a Product Safety Committee. Since then, each production facility has worked to ensure the safety of products and services and prevent accidents. As we enter new business areas where the market demands ever-higher levels of quality and reliability, exemplified by the field of aircraft parts, the entire Minebea Group is working to continuously enhance quality. To this end, overall Minebea Group Quality Management Manual were adopted in FY2007 to improve our quality management framework.
Under the quality management system, the Minebea Group established the Quality Management Committee as a support and advisory body for the President and Chief Executive Officer in his capacity as chief executive. This committee is tasked with monitoring quality management systems and the performance of those systems overseen by the heads of each business headquarters or unit.
The Minebea Group has also established a Quality Management Support Office to act as the secretariat for the Quality Management Committee, to give advice and propose improvements concerning quality management at each business unit or business headquarters, and to provide support for quality assurance and audits, and for dealing with critical quality problems.
Quality Management Framework
Quality Improvement Measures
Responding to the Quality Control Examination
The Minebea Group believes that improving the quality control and quality enhancement ability of individual employees ultimately leads to improving the quality of the Minebea Group. Since September 2008, we have been encouraging employees to sit for the quality control examination (QC examination) conducted by the Japanese Standards Association (JSA) and Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE). In addition to covering employees' course fees, we distribute textbooks to improve their knowledge of quality management. There were 68 employees who sat for the examination in FY2010, 56 of whom passed. A total of 186 Minebea Group employees have passed the examination so far.
Promoting Quality Management System Certification
The Minebea Group promotes ISO9001 certification in each business unit as an international standard for quality management systems. We are also promoting the AS9100 standard for the aviation industry, and the ISO/TS16949 certification standard for the automotive industry.
In FY2010, the Lighting Device Business Unit obtained ISO/TS16949 certification. The EMS Business Unit has also begun efforts to obtain QMS (ISO13485) medical device certification and plans to continue its efforts to strengthen its medical device quality assurance structure.
Soldering Workshop
Soldering Workshop
Many business units in the Minebea Group carry out soldering during the manufacturing process. While each business unit is different, sharing soldering-related knowledge and expertise is very important. Consequently, soldering workshops are held on a regular basis to share information about soldering and commit to quality improvement across business unit boundaries.
Disclosure of Product-related Information
Most products from the Minebea Group are ultimately integrated into finished products that pass into consumers' hands. For this reason, we provide safety-related information to our customers as requested. Also in response to customer requests, we provide information about chemical substances incorporated in our products, based on information obtained from suppliers.
For speakers and a number of other finished products, user manuals include safety-related information.
Communication with Customers
Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Within the Minebea Group, individual business units conduct their own customer satisfaction surveys. This research spans a comprehensive range of evaluation criteria, including sales support, response to product-related problems, and product prices. Findings based on these data are fed back to the sales and development departments of the corresponding business units. If customers should evaluate any criterion below a specific satisfaction level, we assess and implement improvements across all business units.
Responding to Quality-related Problems
If a serious problem concerning the quality of Minebea Group products or services were to occur, the Quality Management Support Office would notify the Quality Management Committee, which would then determine the best response.
Future Issues and Goals
Common product quality risk management is being strengthened throughout the Minebea Group. Specifically, there are three types of initiatives: hardware-related practice improvement initiatives, exemplified by our soldering workshops; software-related initiatives such as acquisition of quality management system standard certifications, and initiatives to strengthen our management structure and standards formulation. The goal of this approach is to organize our quality assurance efforts, reduce defects, and build a structure that will earn the trust of our customers.
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